


The Finger on the Trigger

by persephone_garnata



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (rape is not Steve/Bucky), Angst, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Eventual Happy Ending, Female Character of Color, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, Medical Torture, More angst, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:15:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone_garnata/pseuds/persephone_garnata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Bucky goes into cryostasis, T’Challa and a Wakandan scientist agree to help Steve remove Hydra's triggers from his brain. With the aid of African dream root and some advanced technology, Steve is able to enter Bucky’s unconscious mind. There he finds an icy fortress covered in Hydra symbols and guarded by the Winter Soldier, who immediately attacks. Steve’s first challenge is to persuade him that he is here to help, not harm him. Eventually the Winter Soldier recalls some of his Bucky self and allows Steve entry to the fortress of his mind. Inside the fortress are ten rooms, each filled with a traumatic memory created or exploited by Hydra, and each associated with one of the trigger words. Working together, Bucky and Steve discover ways to neutralize the triggers: by drawing on memories of their shared childhood in Brooklyn, and by Steve assuring Bucky he will stand by him, and that he is not and never will be too damaged for redemption. Room by room, they prize Hydra’s fingers off the triggers. Then, in the final room, Steve must face the most traumatic memory of them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dream Root

**Author's Note:**

> Please note this fic has a happy ending but goes through some very dark places on the way. Each chapter has specific trigger warnings in the notes; because of the way the fic is structured, you should be able to skip over a chapter or two without losing the thread of the story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve watches over the frozen Bucky in Wakanda, until King T'Challa says he has found a way to help heal his mind. Steve meets a Wakandan scientist and shaman, and she helps him enter Bucky's unconscious. But the mind can be a dangerous place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the set-up so you will need to read it to understand the rest of the story. It has a threat of violence but no real triggers beyond that.

**The Finger on the Trigger - Chapter 1 "Dream Root"**

 

 

‘How is he?’ T’Challa asked, walking into the room where Steve still sat beside Bucky. He had been sitting there, with only the smallest breaks for basic bodily needs, ever since Bucky had put himself voluntarily on ice. He could see his face through the glass of the cryo chamber, eyes closed. Steve knew, intellectually, that Bucky was safe here: there were guards to protect him, recruited from the formidable all-female force known as the Dora Milaje, and the King of Wakanda would let him come to no harm. But still, he looked so horribly vulnerable and alone, sleeping in his icy tomb, the broken remnants of his metal arm sticking out from his shoulder, that Steve simply couldn’t leave him.

‘The same,’ he said, glancing up from his vigil.

‘Well, you’re not,’ said T’Challa. ‘You look – well, like a man who has barely slept or eaten in days.’

Steve rubbed at the thick stubble on his chin and conceded the point.

T’Challa sniffed. ‘And you smell like you haven’t taken a shower any time recently.’

                Steve bowed his head in embarrassment. He simply hadn’t given his own welfare any thought at all, and he’d given his personal appearance - and odor - even less.

                ‘Go and eat, and sleep,’ said T’Challa, in a voice which was both kind and commanding. ‘I will stay with Barnes myself while you do. You have my personal pledge he will be just the same when you return.’

                Steve opened his mouth to start a protest, but T’Challa cut him off before he began with a raised hand. ‘And you will need your strength and wits if you are to help him.’

                ‘Help him? You think – you have found a way?’

                T’Challa smiled. ‘I think I have found some way to help him, or rather someone.’

                ‘Who?’

                ‘Dr Buyiswa MaBhele. She is both Wakanda’s foremost scientist, and a powerful shaman. She has created a device which should enable us to gain access to the inner workings of Barnes’ mind, and discover the source of the Hydra triggers. If you are prepared to use it in order to help him, that is.’

                ‘I’ll do anything,’ said Steve, quickly.

‘It won’t be pleasant,’ said T’Challa. ‘It will be a long, difficult, process.’

‘I’ll do anything,’ Steve repeated, slowly.

T’Challa smiled again. ‘So go and take a shower, and get some sleep. You need it.’

‘All right,’ said Steve. He walked to the door of the room, glancing over his shoulder at every step to check on Bucky.

‘Go,’ said T’Challa, and there was some quality in his voice which demanded obedience. It was – well, kingly.

 

 

***

 

Steve had never stayed at a Royal Palace before, but the Wakandan Palace certainly lived up to his ideas of the kind of luxury that could be expected from one. It was all wasted on him, of course – as Sam Wilson had said to him, sleeping on a soft bed could be difficult when you were used to the hard ground. He followed T’Challa’s advice and had a shower – the bathroom was, without exaggeration, twice the size of the entire apartment he and Bucky had shared in Brooklyn in the 30s – then curled up naked on the rug, and fell into a deep and mostly dreamless sleep.

Mostly dreamless. There were always some dreams, these days. Falling. Always falling. Sometimes it was himself, sometimes Bucky. Sometimes the train, sometimes the helicarrier, sometimes the Valkyrie, sometimes a mountain or Brooklyn Bridge. The details varied but the basics were always the same – one of them falling, the other trying to save him, but failing.

He always woke up before he hit the ground.

This was an unusually restful night of sleep, since he only woke up once, and then got back to sleep again fairly easily, and slept soundly for several more hours.

What woke him again was not a dream, but a smell: coffee and fresh-baked bagels. And for one brief, sweet moment, he thought he was back in Brooklyn, lying on the couch half-asleep while Bucky brewed them a pot of coffee on the stove and fetched bagels from the Jewish bakery on the corner.

Then he opened his eyes, and saw that a servant must have come in while he was sleeping, and laid out on the sideboard the best approximation of a New York breakfast Wakanda could devise. Steve tucked in, and couldn’t deny that both the coffee and the bagels were good – but the taste wasn’t quite the same, and that close-but-no-cigar quality made him feel more painfully aware of all he had lost than completely foreign food would have done.

Next to the bagels was a bowl of fresh fruit, although Steve didn’t recognize a single one of the fruits it contained. Some of them had spines. He decided not to attempt to eat any of them.

He was just pouring himself some more coffee, when there came a knock at the door, and a resonant female voice, probably one of the Dora Milaje, saying – or rather proclaiming -  ‘His Highness King T’Challa desires audience with Mr Rogers!’

Steve looked down, and realized he was still butt naked. ‘Um, gimme a minute!’ he called back, then added hastily ‘Your Highness.’ He hadn’t been too bothered about royal protocol up to now – worry and sleep deprivation made a guy forget things like etiquette – but he felt pretty sure  the King wouldn’t want to see his dick.

‘The King is not kept waiting,’ the same female voice said, and then T’Challa himself cut in ‘I can wait a minute. He is American, we have to make certain allowances.’

Steve hastily pulled on some clean clothes and hoped he could make as suitable a representative of his country in the Palace of Wakanda as on the war-torn fields of Europe.

‘Come in!’ he called, and the door opened. Two bodyguards walked in and flanked the door, and then two more people entered – one of them King T’Challa. The other was a large woman wearing a long white lab coat, an elaborate headdress, and a many-layered necklace of brightly-colored beads.

‘How is Bucky?’ Steve asked.

‘He is the same as ever, and he is safe,’ said T’Challa. ‘Now, I want you to meet Dr Buyiswa MaBhele.’

‘Mr Rogers,’ said the woman, and Steve immediately recognized the voice which had spoken through the door.

‘It’s good to meet you, Dr MaBhele,’ said Steve. He held out a hand, but the doctor didn’t take it. ‘T’Challa – His Highness – says you’ve invented something which can help Bucky.’

‘The oneirobasis device may enable you to assist your colleague,’ said Dr MaBhele. ‘But I cannot make any promises. I have used it myself successfully, to treat patients with various mental disorders, but it has never before been used under such conditions. I should also say that it relies on not just science, but also on principles of shamanism unique to Wakanda. I was very reluctant to allow its use by and for a foreigner, but His Highness persuaded me otherwise.’

She glanced over at T’Challa, whose mouth twitched, very slightly.

‘Thank you, Dr MaBhele,’ said Steve. ‘I really appreciate it.’

Dr MaBhele pursed her mouth. ‘I’m not sure you will. But we shall see. Let it be understood, right now, that no part of what you and Mr Barnes are about to experience can be talked about in detail, outside Wakanda.’

‘I understand.’

‘Very well. Give him the root.’

A servant  Steve hadn’t been aware was even there stepped out from behind the door, where he had obviously been waiting for her command. He had a small lidded bowl in his hands; he held it out to Steve and lifted the lid, releasing a small cloud of steam and a strong spicy smell. The bowl, Steve saw, was a blue-green color, with veins of gold threaded across it at random. It was strikingly beautiful, even in the palatial surroundings.

‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘This is a tea for you, made from the holy root. The word for it in my language is undlela zimhlophe, which in English means White Paths. You may have heard it called African Dream Root.’

‘And you want me to drink it?’

‘It’s essential, if you are to enter the dreamscape of your colleague Mr Barnes and start the healing process.’

‘OK,’ said Steve, and took the bowl, carefully. ‘Nice bowl,’ he said.

‘It’s from Japan,’ said T’Challa. ‘They call this style of pottery _kintsukuroi_. Broken pots, mended with gold, so that their cracks are not hidden, but they are more beautiful for having been broken.’

Steve looked into the depths of the dark tea. ‘What happens after I drink this?’

Dr MaBhele answered him. ‘We take you to the room where Mr Barnes is in suspension. I hook you both up to the oneirobasis device, and then your journey will begin. I will try to guide you as much as I can, but I don’t know what you will encounter inside Mr Barnes’ mind. It may be difficult, and it may be dangerous. Are you sure you’re ready?’

‘For Bucky? I’m ready for anything,’ said Steve, and drank the tea down in one gulp.

The room immediately started to swirl around him.

‘You’re supposed to sip it gradually!’  he heard Dr MaBhele say, and then the rug came up to meet him. He let out a low moan, everything still swirling. He could hear voices, but they sounded far away, and under water.

‘What should we do now?’ T’Challa said.

‘The root is already taking effect. I suppose we should attempt the oneirobasis as planned, but I won’t be able to guide him as I wanted. We’d better carry him to the room.’

‘Carry him? Do you know how much he weighs? I’d better order more guards here.’

Then the swirls went black, and Steve heard no more.

 

 

***

 

When Steve woke up, he was lying on his back in deep snow, with the wind in his ears. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at his body, to see he was wearing his Captain America uniform, his shield lying nearby.

 _How had he gotten here? Where_ was _here?_

Then a voice, echoing in his head, from nowhere. He couldn’t put a name to it, but he had a vague memory associated with it, of a stern woman in a lab coat, and he felt he could trust her.

‘Mr Rogers? I don’t know if you can hear me or not. But if you can, you need to know, you are now in Mr Barnes’ mindscape. Everything you can see is generated by Barnes’ subconscious. In one sense, it isn’t real, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Proceed with caution.’

Steve struggled to his feet and picked up his shield. Not real? The snow felt cold enough, especially after the humid heat of Wakanda. But then – he’d left his shield behind, hadn’t he? Left it in Siberia. It shouldn’t be here with him - wherever here was. He looked around, and saw a rocky, snow-covered hillside. Downhill of where he stood, the land dropped steeply into a ravine. And uphill… a building. Or rather, a fortress, huge and forbidding. Real or not, it didn’t look like anywhere he wanted to go. But it seemed to be the only place he could go, and so he started trudging towards it.

As he drew closer, he saw that the fortress was made from ice. Great blocks of ice, each one as long as Steve was tall, carved with various designs. Steve could see images of tanks and aeroplanes, bombs and rifles, all kinds of weapons. But the biggest and most obvious design was the one right above the single doorway: a Hydra symbol, its tentacles sprawling all round the dark opening. The place seemed to be completely deserted, with nothing to stop him going inside but his own terror of what might lie within.

Then a bullet hit the snow next to him. Steve dove for the ground, covering himself with his shield. Another bullet hit the shield, and he peered round the edge of it. He could just about make out a figure crouched atop the ice fortress, holding a sniper rifle. A figure all dressed in black, face masked, one metal arm, a red star on the shoulder.

‘Bucky!’ he called out, but the only response was another bullet. When he next peered round his shield, Steve saw the Winter Soldier jump down from his perch – surviving the drop easily despite the improbable height – and come right for him, knife in hand.

‘Bucky!’ he said again. ‘It’s me, Steve.’

The masked man, face invisible behind goggles and muzzle, just kept coming.

‘I’m here to help you,’ said Steve. ‘I’m not going to fight you.’

He stood up straight, and dropped his shield. The Winter Soldier paused for a second, then lunged at him with the knife, aiming for his aorta with deadly precision. Steve dodged out of the way just in time, the blade scraping over his sleeve, and stepped behind the other man. He grabbed his arms just above the elbow, keeping himself out of stabbing range, and tried to talk while the soldier struggled, kicking at his legs.

‘Bucky, I know you’re in there,’ he said. ‘It’s me, Steve. Little Stevie Rogers. You remember me. You remember yourself. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, you’re from Brooklyn. We shared an apartment the size of a closet and you always bought bagels and made the coffee. You took care of me, Bucky. Always. No matter what trouble I had gotten myself into, you were there.’

‘Shut up!’ barked the man, in a guttural, heavily-accented voice that sounded nothing like Bucky. He gave Steve a vicious kick right between the legs, and launched himself away while Steve doubled over in pain. He rolled on the snowy ground and came up with the knife still clutched in his metal hand.

‘It’s okay, Buck,’ said Steve, holding his bare hands out on both sides, leaving himself completely open. ‘I’m not going to fight you. I want to help you. I’ll do anything for you, anything you need me to do. You can kill me, if you need to. If that’ll help, I’ll put the knife in myself. And I’ll be with you, all the way. Til the end of the line, pal. The end of the line.’

The man stood stock still, in a crouch, the glint of the knife and his metal arm in stark contrast to the black of his clothes and mask and his long, straggling hair. Snow swirled in the air between them, and for a long moment the only sound was their own ragged breath. Then…

Something relaxed in his stance, fractionally, and Steve thought only someone who knew Bucky as intimately as he did would have noticed anything at all. Another few beats of silence, and then he said something. In Russian.

‘What did you say, Buck?’ Steve asked, hoping it wasn’t ‘I’m going to kill you.’

The Winter Soldier started to repeat the Russian, more slowly, and then stopped and started again, in English this time, but still with a heavy accent, and muffled by the muzzle he wore.

‘I said, this is not the end of the line. It is only the beginning. You think you can help me?’

‘I can try.’

The Soldier made a noise which might have been laugh, and straightened up. He put his knife in his thigh holster, turned his back on Steve, and started walking towards the fortress. Steve followed him, at a safe distance.

‘You will see what lies within,’ said the Soldier. ‘And then you will decide if you still want to help.’

‘What is this place?’ Steve asked.

‘It’s the place with all my worst memories,’ came the answer. ‘The memories which keep the finger on the trigger.’

‘Can we destroy it?’ Steve asked. ‘Burn it down?’

The Soldier just grunted at that, but Steve heard another voice in his head: Dr MaBhele’s.

‘Mr Rogers, if you can hear me, please proceed with extreme caution. Do not attempt to destroy anything you see, or it could cause permanent damage to Mr Barnes’ psyche.’

He supposed that was his answer, and followed the Winter Soldier to the doorway of the fortress. He glanced up at the huge Hydra symbol above his head and felt a shiver down his spine. The worst memories. What could they be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments very welcome! Next chapter should be up tomorrow.  
> I have tried to make the portrayal of Wakanda and its people as culturally sensitive as I can, if I have inadvertently caused any offence I apologize - please let me know and I'll try and amend the story accordingly.


	2. Longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky enter the first room of the fortress, and discover some old memories - twisted by Hydra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers for this chapter: psychological torture

**[Now with header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/longing_2.jpg.html)!**

**Chapter 2 - Longing**

Inside the fortress, the first thing they came to was a hallway, its ceiling so high it disappeared into the shadows. There were ten doors leading off it, each without any handle or other visible means of opening it, each covered in a layer of ice, and each labelled in Cyrillic script. Steve couldn’t decipher the letters, but he knew without asking what they must be: the trigger words which made Bucky into a killing machine.

The Winter Soldier turned and looked at Steve through his mask.

‘You really want to see what’s behind these doors?’ he asked.

‘If you think it will help you,’ said Steve.

‘I think you will learn that I am beyond help.’

‘Nobody is ever beyond help.’

‘You want to bet on that, Captain America?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Very well.’

The Winter Soldier went up to the door of the first room. The sign above it said желание, the octopus-like first letter reminding Steve of the Hydra logo. The Soldier kicked it open, sending tiny shards of ice flying in various directions. A strong breeze and a jumble of sounds came through the opening, and Steve blinked, trying to process what he was seeing.

He had known the fortress wasn’t _real_ in at least some senses _–_ that there was no reason why its chambers should obey the laws of space and time. But still, what he saw through the doorway made him gasp in surprise.

It was New York. As seen from the center of Brooklyn Bridge. Not a picture or a film or a recording of any kind – it even smelled as he remembered it. And it wasn’t New York as he knew it today, as he’d seen it when he woke up after his own icy sleep. It was the city he and Bucky had known, had grown up in.

Without thinking, he stepped through the doorway, onto the bridge’s walkway, and stared around him, drinking in the vanished world. He grabbed onto the side railing, the metal firm and cool beneath his hands. For a few wild seconds, he wondered if he could stay here forever, forget all about super-serum and becoming Captain America and going to war and just live out the life he and Bucky should have had together.

Then he heard the steps behind him, turned to see the Winter Soldier, his face still fully masked, and remembered what a stupid dream that was.

‘Why are we here?’ he asked.

The Winter Soldier said something, a single word in Russian. Then he said ‘Longing.’

‘Longing?’

Even as he said the word, something caught Steve’s eye, and he turned to look at the pair of young men walking past him. One tall, dark-haired and dapper, as familiar to him as his own reflection. Even more so, since it still sometimes shocked him to look in the mirror and see that muscle-bound hero looking back. The young Bucky, dashingly handsome, drawing everyone’s gaze, although his own gaze had only one target: the other young man who walked beside him, short and slight, bits of newspaper poking out from his shoes. Steve almost laughed at the sight of his younger self, his puppyish eagerness to experience the world with Bucky at his side. This memory or dream or whatever it was must be from before his mother had died, because he felt sure he had never looked quite so happy afterwards. Steve saw himself looking back, smiling at Bucky, and felt something tug inside him – a yearning for something long gone, something he’d perhaps never even had in the first place. Without consciously meaning to, he stepped forward.

Then the vision of Brooklyn swam out of focus around him, the color draining away, until it became a room – stuffy and dark, the light coming only in flickers, the urban noises replaced by a steady whirring sound. It took Steve a few queasy seconds to adjust his perception: the bridge had felt so real he had entirely forgotten he was still inside Bucky’s mind.

The bridge was still there – but now only in the form of a silent black-and-white film, being projected onto a screen at one end of the room. The whirring sound came from the projector. They were watching what looked like a newsreel, consisting of spliced-together scenes of him and Bucky. The bridge scene was rapidly replaced by more images – Bucky squeezing Steve’s narrow shoulder and gazing into his eyes. Bucky rescuing Steve from yet another fight in a Brooklyn back alley, supporting him as they stumbled away. It was as if somebody had recorded their youth together and made it into a movie. And then came different images: them in Europe, Steve now in his post-serum body, Bucky’s gaze at first confused and then loving, the instinctive big-brother protectiveness replaced by something else.

As Steve’s eyes grew used to the gloom, he saw they were not alone in the room.

In front of them sat a hunched, filthy figure with one arm: Bucky, a different version of him from the masked and muzzled Winter Soldier who stood at his side. And there were other figures as well, murky and indistinct. However hard Steve tried to focus on them, they never resolved into anything clearer.

Then one turned around, and Steve saw its face. Or rather, the space where a face should be. But there was nothing there – just a grayish blur without features, as if the face had been drawn in pencil and then erased. The – thing – spoke. Without a mouth, its voice sounded less as vibrations in the air, and more as a scratchy hissing noise in Steve’s head, like static.

‘You’ll never have him. You never could have had him,’ it said, repeating the words over and over again. Steve had a strange feeling that the words were not spoken in English, and yet he understood them.

Then another thing, as faceless as the first, turned round, and added its own deeper voice.

‘He never loved you, he never wanted you, he only used you,’ it said, over and over.

A third figure joined, its voice hoarse like a crow. ‘You’ll never see him again,’ it said.

A fourth figure joined, its voice the deepest yet, a low bass rumble. It said only ‘Longing.’

And the four voices all spoke together, woven together in sick harmony, like a hellish version of a barbershop quartet, the sounds rattling around inside Steve’s skull, getting louder and louder. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t block the sounds - they weren’t coming through his ears. In front of him, he saw the other Bucky hunched into himself, hands clenched round his head.

‘STOP!’

The single shouted word came from Steve himself, before he’d consciously decided to open his mouth. To his shock, it actually worked – for a second. The faceless figures stopped their noise. Then, after a few beats of silence, they burst out into laughter – demented, cackling laughter. And then resumed their cacophony, the same as before. Steve stepped forwards, fist raised, ready to punch one of them right in its not-face.

‘If you don’t stop that right now,’ he said, and then felt a warning hand on his arm – a metal one. He looked round to see the Winter Soldier shaking his head.

‘Violence won’t help,’ he said. ‘If you destroy one, another will just come along in its place. It’s pointless.’

‘But-’ Steve started to say, and then drew in his breath slowly, trying desperately to calm himself. He knew it was pointless. He’d heard what Dr MaBhele had said. He knew he couldn’t kill these – things. Life was so much easier when he had a bad guy to thump, but he had to find a different way to fight them. It was so hard to think with their words inside his head, scratching at his brain.

On the screen, the newsreel showed Bucky falling from the train. It cut to black, leaving the room in total darkness. And in the dark the words sounded even louder, filling the space, the only thing anybody could think about.

‘But it’s not true!’ Steve shouted out. To his astonishment, the faceless things’ horrible mantra seemed to get a little quieter.

‘It’s not true!’ he said again, and fumbled in the dark for the Winter Soldier’s hands, holding them in his own. Both of them, the metal and the flesh.

‘None of it’s true,’ he said.

‘You’ll never have him. You never could have had him,’ hissed the first voice.

‘You always had me. Just like I always had you,’said Steve.

A flicker of light. Steve saw that the film reel had re-started from the beginning, the scene on the bridge. Bucky’s look towards Steve, the longing in his eyes. But also – Steve’s look towards Bucky.

‘And you could have had me, any way you wanted,’ said Steve, with a half-laugh. ‘The times were wrong, and we were too shy – but Bucky, you always had me.’

He couldn’t see the other man’s face, but his hands held on to Steve’s. The room seemed quieter than before, and Steve realized the first voice had stopped.

                ‘He never loved you, he never wanted you, he only used you,’ said the second voice.

                ‘I always loved you, I always wanted you. And if I ever used you, it was only because I wanted you at my side all the time, and I knew you’d always be there.’

                The newsreel flickered, and jumped to a scene of them together in the War, clapping each other on the back.

                ‘You always had my back, and I always had yours. And I always loved you. Like a friend, like a brother – like a lover.’

                The Winter Soldier said nothing, but held onto Steve’s hands a little harder than before, the grip of his metal arm cold and firm against his skin.

                The second voice had stopped.

                ‘You’ll never see him again,’ said the third voice.

                ‘I’m here right now,’ said Steve. ‘I’m here with you, in every way I can be. And I am never leaving you again, Buck. That’s a promise.’

                The film cut to the scene of Bucky falling from the train. This time, when the screen went black, Steve held on firmly to those hands, rubbing his thumbs over the palms. Only one voice remained. ‘Longing,’ it said.

                ‘I’m never leaving. You’ll see me every day if you want to. You can see me as much as you want – and you can look at me however you like, for as long as you like. No more snatched glances. We can finally look, and see.’

                The lights came on. Not the silvery light of the film reel, but actual bright light, flooding the room. Steve kept his eyes on the Winter Soldier’s mask, trying to open the windows to his soul as much as possible, pouring all the love he’d ever felt for Bucky into his eyes.

                The Winter Soldier took his hand – the metal one – from Steve’s grip. For a second Steve thought something had gone wrong – and then he reached up to his face, pulled off the goggles, and threw them away.

                They re-joined hands, and now Steve could finally see Bucky’s own eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes. They were framed by smears of black grease, the muzzle still hiding the rest of this face. But they were the same eyes. And what he saw in them – longing giving way to love, and to a flicker of hope. They stood there, hands joined, and they both just looked into each other’s eyes as if there were nothing else in the world.

                They didn’t leave that room by walking out of any door. Instead, it faded away around them, the repeated refrain of ‘Longing’ fading with it, until they were standing in the corridor, in silence.

***

               

Steve didn’t know how long they stayed like that, nor if time even had any meaning in this place. Eventually, he dared to smile. He couldn’t see if Bucky smiled back or not, but the other man was the first to break eye contact.

‘I think it might have worked,’ he said, looking at something behind Steve. His Russian accent sounded less obvious than before.

Steve turned round, and saw the doorframe, dripping with melted ice. The word above it was melting away, and the door itself hung open. Beyond it, he could see that the film of him and Bucky was still showing: but this time not in a darkened room to an audience without faces. Instead, he could see a huge, opulently decorated auditorium. The interior, he realized, of the Brooklyn Paramount movie theater, where he and Bucky went for a treat when they could afford something better than the fleapit. They’d seen Westerns there, and The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn – the first color picture either of them had ever seen.

Happy memories. And he realized what he and Bucky had done together – they hadn’t obliterated those memories of longing represented by the film reel, but they’d changed the associations. From being tormented by Hydra’s goons, to happier times together.

Steve turned back to Bucky, feeling a small swell of pride. He’d prized Hydra’s finger from the trigger, and he’d done it through the power of love.

‘I love you, Buck,’ he said.

If he’d been expecting the Winter Soldier to say ‘I love you too,’ he was disappointed. The other man made a snorting sound behind his muzzle.

‘You say that now,’ he said. ‘But you won’t say it again. Not after you’ve seen what’s in the next room. And the rooms after that.’

Steve looked at the next door, crusted with ice, the single indecipherable word above it with that same letter again – the one that resembled an octopus - and felt as if cold water had been poured on his heart. Well, there was no point in hesitating.

‘One down, nine to go,’ he said. ‘I could do this all day.’

He tried to smile at Bucky, but got no reaction.

Steve kicked down the door himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments very welcome!


	3. Rusted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the second room of the fortress, Steve finds out how Bucky got his metal arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers for this chapter: body horror, medical torture, gore, suicidal thoughts.

**[Now with header art by Lorien!](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/rusted_2.jpg.html) **

**Chapter 3 - Rusted**

There was a room behind this door, a small room with a high ceiling and no windows, tiled walls and floor. The first thing that struck Steve about it was the smell: blood and disinfectant and, beneath that, something foul, like spoiled meat.

In the centre of the room stood an operating table, surrounded by people in medical gowns and masks, wielding stainless steel surgical implements of various types. At first they made an almost-complete circle, and all Steve could see of the person on the table was a single bare foot. Then they parted a little, and Steve saw more.

Bucky. Of course it was Bucky – but not as Steve wanted to see him. Face streaked with dirt and blood, hair matted, wearing the filthy remnants of his army uniform, his eyes wide with terror, his mouth stuffed with rags to stop him screaming. And his arm…

Steve had seen his share of violence on the fields of Europe, of course he had, but he still couldn’t repress a shudder at the sight of that bloodied mess, the ragged flesh, the protruding bone. The wound had started to fester, the skin blackening.

One of the surgeons produced a large saw, the harsh electric light glinting from its sharp jagged teeth. When Bucky saw it, he tried to move away, but couldn’t: it was then that Steve noticed he had been tied to the table with leather straps. As he watched, another surgeon grabbed his head and held him down. The surgeon approached, as the room filled with Bucky’s muffled screams and the noise of his body thrashing hopelessly against his restraints.

Steve leapt forwards, but he didn’t get far; a metal arm on his elbow stopped him.

‘You cannot change this,’ said the other Bucky.

‘But they’re going to amputate without anesthetic!’

‘I know. I lived it.’ Bucky’s eyes were filled with pain.

Steve couldn’t say anything to that. He just stood by, helpless, and watched alongside him as the surgeons sawed away the stump of the old Bucky’s arm. Somehow he felt he owed it to him to watch. The only small blessing he could cling to was that it didn’t take long for Bucky to pass out.

He woke up just in time to see the surgeons bringing something else into the room, held carefully and reverently on a tray. A metal arm. Not the Winter Soldier’s arm: a different one, more skeletal, its joints and hydraulic workings exposed. Its metal fingers twitched, with a slight whirring sound. As it was brought to the operating table, Bucky tried to struggle all over again, to no avail.

‘You didn’t want it,’ said Steve. He realized, guiltily, that he had never considered that before.

‘I was given no choice,’ said Bucky.

The surgery to implant the metal arm was even worse than the amputation. The surgeons flipped Bucky onto his front – it took five of them to keep him under control – sliced open his back, and bolted the end of the new arm to his spine. Steve watched it all, trying hard not to look away, or throw up. Unconsciously, he reached for Bucky’s hand again, and touched cold metal. He flinched.

‘Sorry Buck,’ he said, instantly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘I understand,’ said Bucky. ‘I’m a freak.’

‘You’re not.’ Steve grabbed the metal hand firmly in his own, and they watched the rest of the surgery together.

Something in the room shimmered then, and it changed. Another operating theater: another table, this one empty. The surgeons had disappeared. Grimy windows let in cold sunlight. For a few seconds, everything was mercifully quiet and peaceful, and Steve thought that this memory had ended. Then a pair of doors, on the far side of the room from where Steve and Bucky stood, burst open, and another group of masked surgeons came in, carrying a stretcher between them. They were talking rapidly, in Russian: Steve didn’t understand it, but one word kept leaping out at him, over and again, and he understood that, though he didn’t know how. Rusted.

When the person on the stretcher was lifted onto the operating table, Steve saw the significance of the word. The metal arm – new and shiny just moments ago as he had experienced it – was now reddish-brown, the surface blistered and flaking. As the surgeons cut away his clothes, Steve saw that Bucky himself seemed to have rusted along with his arm – his skin was covered in deep red blotches.

‘They didn’t give the steel a decent rust-proof coating before they bolted the thing into me,’ said the other Bucky, his voice oddly calm and detached. ‘I got blood poisoning from it.’

This time, the Bucky on the table didn’t try to scream or struggle. He seemed listless, resigned, only half-conscious, like he was suffering from a high fever.

‘I almost died,’ Bucky commented. ‘I wanted to. But they didn’t let me.’

Instead, while Steve watched, the surgeons worked to remove the rusted arm – cutting him open all over again – and then replaced it with a new one, the one Steve recognized. Sleek and shiny and seamlessly integrated with his body. Or at least, it had seemed seamless to Steve, until he saw the process of screwing it onto his skeleton and wiring it in to his central nervous system, the arm’s tendrils reaching far further into his body than he’d ever dreamed, right into his spinal column. Which meant that he could control it like his own flesh, but also meant –

‘You can feel it,’ he said. ‘You can feel pain from it. When it was torn off…’

Bucky nodded,his mask moving a little as if he’d clenched his jaw, and the two were silent for a short while, watching the surgery, as the surgeons pulled him to pieces and stitched him back together with something else inside him, something he’d never asked for.

‘I hate it,’ Bucky said. ‘But I also hate being broken.’

‘You’re not-’ Steve started to say, then had to pause to steady himself. ‘You’re not broken, Bucky.’

‘What do you call it then?’ Bucky asked, bitterly. He held up the metal hand in front of his face and waggled the fingers. ‘I hated this arm, what they did to me, but at least it worked. Now I’ve got nothing but a useless stump.’

‘We can get you a new prosthetic,’ Steve said. ‘Operate to remove the remnants of the old arm, and fit a new one.’

Bucky winced at that, and Steve hastened to correct himself. ‘Or not,’ he said. ‘Only if you want to. If you’d rather not have any more surgery, that’s up to you.’

And, he thought, he would completely understand if Bucky never wanted to go under the knife again.

‘What – and just stay incomplete? A broken toy?’

Bucky’s voice was still a bit muffled by the muzzle on his face, but it sounded to Steve like he was on the verge of tears.

‘Who could possibly want me like that?’

‘I would, Bucky,’ said Steve, and grabbed his flesh hand. ‘I don’t care how many arms you have. Whether it’s one, or two, or none, or if you suddenly grow an extra seven, I don’t care. You’re still beautiful, and I’ll still love you just as much.’

Bucky’s shoulders heaved, but his eyes stayed dry. Then something changed about him: the metal arm shimmered and became translucent. Slowly, it faded away, and the operating theater faded away around them at the same time, until they were standing in the corridor again, and Steve was facing a Bucky with only one, flesh, arm.

Steve looked around, and saw the second word melting away, dripping down around a doorway which now led into the Wakandan cryo chamber. In there stood another Bucky, also one-armed; next to him stood Steve himself. Beyond the chamber, an interior window looked through onto the operating theater they had seen before – but it was distant now, beyond a sheet of glass.

‘I’ll always love you,’ he said to Bucky, but Bucky only shook his head.

‘You won’t,’ he said. ‘Not after you see what’s next.’

‘Why - what’s next?’ Steve asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments very welcome!


	4. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the third chamber, Steve learns how Hydra persuaded Bucky to kill for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter: medical torture, psychological breakdown, gore

**Chapter 4 - "Seventeen"**

[Header Art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/seventeen_2.jpg.html)

‘One,’ said the man they referred to as the Dentist.

There was a rattle as he dropped the tooth into a metal basin. He lifted up the bloodied pliers and held them in front of Bucky’s face, where he sat in the modified dentist’s chair, limbs strapped down, mouth held open by some Hydra goon.

‘Now,’ said the man they referred to as the General, ‘will you comply?’

The goon let go of Bucky’s jaw. Bucky spat out a mouthful of blood. ‘Never,’ he said.

‘Interesting,’ said the General. ‘Again,’ he said, to the Dentist.

The goon pulled Bucky’s mouth open again, and the Dentist went in with his pliers. Bucky’s screams were muffled around the goon’s hands, but still clearly audible.

‘Two,’ said the Dentist, holding up the tooth proudly, complete with broken root.

Another rattle as it joined the first in the metal basin.

‘You have killed men before,’ said the General. ‘Why not for us?’

Bucky – mouth free once more – said ‘I killed Nazis. In wartime.’ Blood dripped down his chin.

‘True,’ said the general, and nodded to the Dentist, who leaned forwards, wielding the pliers.

‘Stop!’ yelled Steve, sick of witnessing more pain. Without thinking, he launched himself at the Dentist, throwing him against the wall.

Except, as soon as he hit the wall, he vanished. And reappeared, back at the chair, pliers in hand. Steve tried again, but the same thing happened. The Dentist reached for Bucky’s mouth.

‘You can’t fight him,’ said the other Bucky from the door, his voice flat. ‘It already happened.’

‘Three,’ said the Dentist.

Steve stood, panting, fists clenched at his sides. ‘What can I do then?’ he asked.

‘Nothing but watch. And learn.’

‘You killed Nazis,’ said the General. ‘Because they were bad men, or because you were ordered to?’

The Bucky in the chair breathed hard, clearly unwilling to answer. The General made a gesture.

‘Four,’ said the Dentist.

‘What am I supposed to learn from this?’ Steve asked. ‘I don’t want to watch you suffer any more.’

The Bucky by the door gave him no answer.

‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me,’ said the General. ‘I will repeat myself. Did you kill these Nazis because they were bad men, or because you were ordered to?’

‘Both.’ Bucky spat out more blood along with the word.

‘A good answer,’ said the General. ‘But you must realize at least some of those men you killed were actually good men – family men, with wives and children? Or should I say, widows and orphans?’

Bucky in the chair stayed silent. Another gesture.

This time the screams sounded ragged as well as muffled.

‘Five,’ said the Dentist.

‘You might like to know,’ said the General, conversationally, ‘that the Dentist is very skilled at extracting teeth in a particular pattern so as to make it very difficult to bite or chew. After only a few more extractions, you will be unable to eat anything but thin gruel. Of course, if you agree to my proposition, I will see you are provided with a brand new set of teeth.’

‘I’m not becoming your pet assassin,’ said Bucky, but his voice had little strength.

‘Of course not,’ said the General.

This time, he didn’t even need to make the gesture.

‘Six.’

‘So,’ said the General. You have killed men before. Good men, some of them. Because you were ordered to. And you will again, when I order you to.’

‘Never.’

‘Seven.’

The extractions were becoming quicker, Bucky’s struggles weaker and weaker, the goon barely even needing to hold his mouth open any more.

‘You will,’ said the General softly, and then held up four fingers to the Dentist.

‘Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.’

The teeth fell into the metal basin.

‘I’m not your pet.’

Now, when Bucky spoke, his voice sounded not just cracked and weakened but kind of mushy, like the old beggar Steve remembered from their childhood in Brooklyn – the one with only three visible teeth. And Steve could see the gaps in his mouth - that once-dazzling smile ruined.

‘Oh, but you are my pet. You just need housebreaking.’

‘Twelve.’

This time, Bucky just sat in the chair, shaking.

‘You will kill for me. You will kill who you are ordered to, when you are ordered, how you are ordered. You will not question orders. Do you understand?’

No answer.

‘Thirteen.’

The Dentist now held up the metal basin, angled so Bucky could see inside, and shook it, so that the extracted teeth inside rattled against each other. Steve swallowed down a mouthful of bile. He didn’t think he had never felt so helpless. He longed to smash his fist into the Dentist’s face and scatter his own teeth to the far corners of the room, but he knew that would do no good.

At the back of his head, he heard someone speaking, a female voice.

‘Thank you,’ it said. ‘No, there is little change here. It is important we keep them stable, and comfortable. Not much else we can do at this stage – but hope Mr Rogers can do some good inside Mr Barnes’ head, and keep his own.’

He swallowed again, eyes closed, steeling his resolve. When he opened them, he saw the Bucky by the door, posture slumped, refusing to meet his eye, looking instead towards his own alter ego in the chair.

‘Fourteen.’

‘I repeat again, do you understand?’

‘I understand.’ Bucky’s voice was now barely intelligible. ‘But I won’t comply.’

The General laughed. ‘You are a tough one,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Under the Dentist’s treatment, nobody has lasted longer than thirteen teeth before.’

‘Fifteen.’

The blood dribbled freely down Bucky’s chin and onto his clothes. It smeared his face and hair and the hands of the goon who held him down.

‘You understand. And you will comply.’

A barely perceptible motion of Bucky’s head.

‘Sixteen.’

‘After we’ve done your teeth, we can move onto your bones, you know,’ said the General. ‘Starting with the fingers.’

Nothing but labored breathing.

‘Seventeen.’

‘Soldier?’

Bucky heaved with dry sobs. ‘Ready to comply,’ he said. The words were hopelessly mangled, but the General heard them all right.

‘Good,’ he said. Then he turned to the Dentist. ‘Patch him up,’ he said.

‘Very well,’ said the Dentist. He looked disappointed the torture was over, but obediently started preparing some kind of shot, while the goon cleaned up the Bucky in the chair.

‘You see?’ said the Bucky by the door.

‘I see your teeth being pulled out,’ said Steve.

‘Seventeen of them,’ said Bucky. ‘But they gave me new ones. When I agreed to kill for them.’

He ripped off the muzzle from his face, and pulled a mirthless grin, so Steve could see his teeth, white and perfect.

‘And I did kill for them,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘Many, many times. Men, women, even children. People who’d done nothing to me. People who’d probably done nothing at all. I killed because I was ordered to, and I didn’t ask questions. I agreed to kill, because I couldn’t stand _that_ any more.’

He waved his one hand towards the chair. The other Bucky was now being given what seemed to be a local anesthetic. He lay there, limp and compliant, while the Dentist leaned over him with the syringe.

‘I just wanted the pain to stop. And I didn’t want to be broken any more.’

‘Bucky, you’re not broken,’ said Steve. ‘Never.’

Bucky’s laugh was as mirthless as his grin had been. ‘Not broken? No arm, half my teeth pulled out, and that’s only what you can see.’

‘You’re not broken,’ Steve repeated, stubbornly. ‘Outside or inside.’

‘You can say that as often as you like, doesn’t make it true. They broke me, right there in that chair.’

Steve took a deep breath, desperately trying to think what he could possibly say.

‘And then,’ Bucky continued, ‘the things they made me do… Howard and Maria Stark are only the tip of the iceberg. So many lives ended, Steve. Ended by me. All because I had to make it stop.’

‘Seventeen,’ muttered the Dentist, with what sounded like grudging admiration, rattling his grisly collection around in the metal bowl. Steve remembered what the General had said to him. ‘You are a tough one. Under the Dentist’s treatment, nobody has lasted longer than thirteen teeth before.’ And then he knew – not exactly what he needed to say, but at least, where he could start.

‘But Bucky,’ Steve said, ‘you think I wouldn’t have given in? If they’d done the same to me?’

Bucky shrugged with his one good shoulder. ‘You’re the golden blue-eyed boy,’ he said. ‘Of course you’d have held out.’

‘That’s horseshit. If it had been me in that chair, I’d have given in too. Anyone would have. Nobody can withstand torture forever. You heard what he said – nobody else lasted beyond thirteen. You lasted seventeen. That’s not weakness – that’s strength.’

Bucky gave another mirthless laugh. ‘Strength. Much good it did me, or anyone else. I might as well have given up after one.’

‘But you didn’t, Buck. You were braver than anybody else. Tougher than anybody else. You always were. And you always will be.’

Bucky sighed, shaking his head. ‘You have such faith in me,’ he said. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

‘I don’t care if you think you deserve it or not,’ said Steve, firmly.

‘They made me a killer. A cold-blooded murderer.’

‘They’d have made anyone a killer. Only you can make you you.’

‘Only you can make you you?’ Bucky smiled at that, actually smiled, his perfect teeth on show but he didn’t seem to care. ‘Steve, sometimes you say the stupidest things.’

‘Yeah, well, you inspire the stupidest things,’ said Steve, stepping closer to him, looking at his stupidly handsome face, that cute cleft in his chin, his beautiful pink lips he’d longed to kiss for so many years.

‘Only the stupidest thing would keep faith in me,’ said Bucky.

‘Then I’m the stupidest thing,’ said Steve, and leaned in to those lips, his eyes fluttering closed.

‘You are,’ said Bucky, and took a step back, taking his warmth away, leaving Steve alone in a chilly breeze. Steve looked around him, and saw they were back in the corridor, the icy word melting from above another door, the Dentist and the General now seen from behind another sheet of glass, versions of Bucky and Steve standing together in the anteroom.

Steve breathed a sigh of relief, and then looked back at Bucky, and saw he had put the muzzle back on, hiding half his face again.

‘Bucky… why have you done that? Why won’t you let me see your face?’

‘This is my face now,’ said Bucky.

Steve didn’t know what to say to that, so he turned to the next door, and kicked it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments very welcome! Next chapter will be up soon.


	5. Daybreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve learns about Hydra's mind-wipes and reminds Bucky of their shared memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: torture

**Chapter 5 - Daybreak**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/daybreak_2.jpg.html)

Behind the next door was another operating theater, or was it a torture chamber? Steve couldn’t tell the difference any more.

This one had a low circular platform, with a chair and a mass of electrical equipment. Bucky – or a Bucky – was strapped into the chair, his mouth clamped shut around something gray. Around him stood a group of Hydra scientists, in white lab coats.

The walls of the chamber were covered in mirrors, but not the kind of one-way mirrors for observation Steve might have expected. They weren’t solid - they didn’t even seem to occupy the same physical space as the platform in the center. Instead, they kept bulging and shifting as if they were alive, constantly distorting everything they reflected like a nightmare version of the Coney Island fun house. And they shattered too, fragmenting the reflections into thousands of tiny pieces, and then re-formed as if they were made of mercury.

‘What is this place?’ Steve asked.

‘Daybreak,’ said the Bucky beside him. ‘Again.’

Almost as he said it, the goons on the platform strapped plates to the sides of Bucky’s head, and then Steve had to watch as they sent electrical shocks right through his brain, listen to his muffled screams.

And then they removed the plates and stepped back, and that Bucky rose from the chair, his eyes frighteningly blank.

‘It’s daybreak, Soldier,’ said the closest scientist.

‘Ready to comply,’ said Bucky, in a voice entirely without expression or personality.

Something shifted in the room then, as if a shudder went through the mirrors, and when Steve looked back at the platform, he saw the chair empty, two scientists standing by. Noise behind him made him turn – to see another Bucky, being dragged into the room by what looked like Soviet soldiers.

‘I remember!’ he was screaming. ‘My name is James Buchanan Barnes! I know who I am!’

‘Not for much longer,’ said one of the scientists.

The soldiers forced him into the chair and strapped him down.

‘I know who I am! You can’t force me to do anything!’ he screamed.

‘No force will be necessary,’ said the scientist, and slid something gray into his mouth, nearly making him choke. ‘But you will do whatever we order.’

The plates went onto his head again, and Steve watched the electrical shocks. But what was worse than seeing the shocks themselves was seeing Bucky rise from the chair, his eyes back to that disturbing blankness.

‘It’s daybreak, Soldier,’ said the scientist.

‘Ready to comply.’

The room shuddered again, the mirrors splitting and re-forming, and now Steve saw another Bucky being led in, this one weeping and begging to be set free. They strapped him into the chair, just the same as before, and administered the shocks.

‘What is this?’ Steve asked the Bucky beside him. ‘What are they doing?’

‘Mindwipes,’ said Bucky. ‘Again and again.’

‘Daybreak, Soldier.’

‘Ready to comply.’

Again, the room shuddered, the mirrors showing Steve crazy twisted multiplied reflections of the platform and the chair – but not, he noticed, himself, nor the Bucky who stood by him.

This time, the Bucky who came in was talking to his captors in an almost-reasonable tone of voice. ‘Is this really necessary?’ he was saying. ‘I mean, surely it would be better for me to retain clearer memories of past operations in order to be able to refine my techniques. Besides, aren’t you worried if you do this too often you’ll, um, compromise the integrity of my psyche?’

It didn’t sound like the sort of thing Bucky would say, and Steve wondered if he was parroting stuff he’d overheard the scientists discuss. As he was pulled closer to the chair, he began to resist.

‘Can’t we at least experiment with leaving me, um, in this state?’ he said, sounding fearful now. ‘Just for a few days at least?’

‘I’m sorry, Soldier,’ said the lead scientist, although she didn’t sound sorry. ‘The Daybreak Protocol is quite clear.’

The Hydra soldiers had to drag Bucky onto the platform and into the chair, while he screamed ‘Noooo!’

It was the hardest wipe to watch yet, and that blank expression afterwards even harder to see than before.

The room shuddered again. The next Bucky came in unconscious with a bandage round his head, carried on a stretcher. They took him to the chair just the same.

‘How many times?’ Steve asked.

Bucky shrugged. ‘You think I can remember?’

‘And – in between? Did things – come back to you?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes not. It was always – fragmented. I’m sure there’s more I’ve lost than I’ve retained. And the things I’ve got – I’m not always sure how they fit together.’

The electric current went through the Bucky in the chair, and even though unconscious, he still screamed.

The mirrors did their weird nightmare-house-of-fun thing again, and the sight made Steve think of Coney Island. And that gave him a spark of an idea.

‘You remember Coney Island, don’t you?’ he said.

‘Some of it.’

‘The cyclone you made me ride?’

He couldn’t see Bucky’s mouth, but he had a feeling he was smiling beneath his mask.

‘Yeah. I remember that.’

‘And do you remember the bagels you used to get for us, from the Jewish bakery on the corner?’

‘Best bagels in Brooklyn. ‘Specially the salt beef. But you preferred the lox.’

Steve smiled. ‘Never tasted anything better. Been searching for a bakery half as good, but not found one one yet. Maybe you can help me with that, since you’re the only other guy who remembers what those bagels were like.’

Bucky didn’t say anything to that. Across the room, yet another iteration of himself was getting brain-fried.

Steve knew it was a risk, but he took it anyway.

‘And I want you to come back to Coney Island with me, and Brooklyn, since you’re the only guy who remembers how it was in the old days. We can walk around together, check out all our old haunts. We can even go to Europe together if you like, visit that castle in the mountains – you remember that?’

A beat of silence, and then Bucky spoke, slowly, as if dragging something up from the depths of his mind. ‘Yeah. The place in south Germany with the tall white towers, like something out of a fucking fairy tale. We flew over it once and vowed we’d see it properly one day. I remember that.’

Steve took a step closer. ‘We can now,’ he said. ‘A lot has changed since then, but that castle hasn’t. And I haven’t changed, not much, but everything around me has. Now Peggy’s gone, you’re the only one left who knows me. Really knows the real me. I need you to help me figure out how to live. Where I can get the best bagels, for a start.’

Bucky snorted. ‘I doubt I’d be much help.’

‘You’d be more help than anybody else. Trust me on that one. Sam and Nat have tried their best to help, but they don’t know me like you do. They don’t remember Coney Island, or Brooklyn, or the castle in the mountains, or the bagels, or the newspapers in my shoes. I don’t care if you don’t remember everything, or if you need some help piecing things together. I need you.’

Suddenly, he remembered a detail from Wakanda: the cup Dr MaBhele had given him, made of broken pieces stuck together with gold.

‘Maybe some things can never be whole again, but something can be more beautiful after it’s been broken,’ he said, under his breath.

The sound of electricity, and a shudder in the room; but this time, the mirrors all shattered, then melted away, and left them in the corridor again. Steve breathed a deep sigh, and saw there were still six doors left, frozen shut.

‘We’re less than half way,’ said Steve, and suddenly felt very tired. His shoulders sagged.

‘So are you going to give up now?’ asked Bucky.

‘Never.’

Steve squared his shoulders again, and charged one of them into the next door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments are, as ever, very welcome! Next chapter should be up tomorrow.


	6. Furnace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fifth room of the icy fortress isn't cold, but as hot as the fires of hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter: torture.

**Chapter 6 - "Furnace"**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/furnace_2.jpg.html)

As soon as he entered the chamber beyond the fifth door, Steve broke into a sweat. The room was uncomfortably hot, especially in contrast to the icy corridor. And he soon saw why; they were in a boiler room. Nearly a quarter of the floor space was taken up with an immense cast-iron cylindrical boiler, and at one end of it a furnace, doors open to reveal its fiery heart. Thick iron pipes snaked off in all directions.

Bucky was there, of course, stripped to the waist. His hands had been pulled behind his back, wrapped around a vertical pipe, and cuffed together. He leaned at an awkward angle, grimacing, holding his flesh hand and arm away from the burning-hot metal of the pipe.

And there were Hydra goons there too, of course. Steve felt his stomach churn as he saw them pull something out of the furnace – long rods of metal, wrapped in cloth at one end, and red-hot at the other.

‘Let’s test these healing powers, then,’ said one, and the other one just laughed.

The one who had spoken reached the rod he held towards Bucky’s chest, and with a strange kind of care, pressed it into his skin. Bucky screamed, and the air filled with the smell of burning flesh.

Steve had been raised a good god-fearing Catholic, taken to services at Our Lady of Refuge every Sunday. He hadn’t been a practicing Catholic for a very long time, but there were certain things that had stuck with him. Like the visions of Hell from Sunday school, the fire and tormenting devils. And this that he saw before him now was straight out of the darkest visions he’d ever had.

He didn’t think. Didn’t pause for one second to consider what he was doing. Just launched himself straight at the goons, grabbing the hot metal rods without thought for his own pain, using them to shove the goons across the room and against the pipes. They disappeared, just like the Dentist had done, and reappeared back in the same place they’d been before. Steve let out a groan of frustration and turned his attention the the furnace itself. There were big metal tongs hanging from a hook nearby. He grabbed them and plunged them into the fire.

‘I’ll burn this place down, I’ll melt everything!’ he shouted, pulling burning coals out of the furnace.

‘Steve, stop!’

A firm hand on his upper arm. A voice that sounded subtly different than before – more familiar, more Brooklyn, more Bucky.

He paused, panting, the sweat pouring down his face.

‘Steve,’ said Bucky, looking into his eyes. ‘This place is my mind, remember? If you burn it down, the only thing you'll damage is me.’

‘But I can’t – I’ve had enough – I can’t watch them torture you any more, Buck.’

‘Giving up? That ain’t the Steve I knew.’ The Brooklyn accent was stronger now. ‘The Steve I knew was a dumb little shit who wouldn’t give up if I begged him to, and I usually did.’

Steve took several deep, rattling breaths, and threw the tongs away from him. They hit a pipe with a loud clang. Across the room, the other Bucky had passed out, slumped sideways. The goons were splashing him with cold water. Torturing an unconscious man was no fun.

Bucky watched as his other self woke up, so the pain could begin again.

‘It’s in the past,’ he said, and turned back to Steve. ‘You can’t change what happened. You can only give up on me – or not.’

‘Never,’ said Steve.

Bucky squeezed his arm, and the room melted away around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments very welcome! Next chapter will be up soon.


	7. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve witnesses what some of Hydra's men did in their down time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: this is the chapter with the rape scene.

**Chapter 7 - "Nine"**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/nine_2.jpg.html)

Out in the corridor again, the cold air a blessed relief. Five doors down, five to go.

‘Are you ready for the next one?’ Bucky asked Steve.

‘Not really. Are you?’

‘No. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.’

‘Here we go then.’

Steve tried to smile, but the expression faded from his face at the sight of that unchanging muzzle. He turned his attention to the next door instead, and kicked it down with a small sense of satisfaction. Kicking things was simple, and easy.

The room beyond stank. It stank like sex: sweat and semen. At first, Steve couldn’t see why. The room was done up as a dormitory, with rows of narrow metal-framed beds, each with a single small dresser alongside. Nine beds, Steve saw. A portable record player stood on a table, blaring out some loud classical music. Judging by the closed drapes over the window, it was night-time, and yet nobody was asleep. A couple of men sat on one bed, smoking and talking in low voices. A few more men were standing in a loose group, gathering around another bed.

Steve took a few steps forwards, dreading what he might see. Bucky hung back.

As Steve drew closer to that bed, the smell grew worse. Unwashed bodies. Unwashed clothes. Bodily fluids. And he could hear something too, over the tinny recorded orchestra. Grunting, and a sound like flesh slapping against flesh.

Then, between two of the men, Steve caught a glimpse of a third, his pants pulled down so Steve could see his pale ass as he thrust into somebody lying face-down. Steve barged his way past the two men, and went to the bed.

Bucky lay there, mute and unresisting. His hands were tied to the iron bedstead with a leather belt, but he didn’t struggle at all; his only movements were passive jolts as the man pounded into him. And his face…

Steve thought he would have found it easier to bear if Bucky had been screaming, his face contorted in pain and anguish. Or if he’d somehow managed to get some kind of pleasure from this encounter, unwilling though it undoubtedly was. But no – there was nothing like that to be seen on his features. There was nothing at all.

Bucky’s face was partly concealed by the pillow, and entirely expressionless. His eyes stared blankly out at something a thousand yards beyond the room, as blue as the sky and showing just as much life. If it hadn’t been for the occasional blink, Steve might have taken him for a corpse.

The man finished with a loud grunt, withdrew, and jumped down from the bed.

‘Who’s next?’ he said, as he accepted a towel from one of the others and used it to wipe himself clean. There were streaks of blood on the towel once he’d finished.

‘It’s my turn,’ said the man next to Steve, and stepped forwards, fumbling with his zipper. He climbed onto the bed and started working himself with one hand, the other hand braced on Bucky’s lower back. Bucky didn’t react at all.

Steve felt something inside him break. He charged at the man, throwing him onto the floor, and turned round, ready to face the others. He’d kill them. He’d kill them all, for daring to touch his Bucky, for making him like this.

Then he caught sight of Bucky – not the Bucky on the bed, the other Bucky, the one who’d become the Winter Soldier and was now in the process of turning back into himself. He stood at the door, his one arm crossed over his body in a self-protective gesture, and he was looking right at Steve. Not a blank stare like his counterpart, but a look that challenged him, demanded a reaction.

Steve shoved the other men aside, leaving them to take their sick pleasures, and strode over to the other Bucky. _His_ Bucky.

‘Ain’t no point in fighting them,’ Bucky said to him. ‘It already happened, remember?’

‘How could you just let them do it to you?’ Steve asked, the words out of his mouth before he’d fully formed them in his head. ‘Why didn’t you fight?’

‘What would be the point of struggling? They would do what they wanted anyway. And once the first few had been… it didn’t hurt so much.’

Steve winced. Bucky looked him right in the eye. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘I’m _used_.’

Steve’s mouth seemed to have gone dry, and he could taste bile in the back of his throat. ‘Bullshit,’ he said, slowly, sounding the two syllables separately, hitting the ‘t’ hard.

Bucky made a dismissive noise. ‘Face it, Steve,’ he said, his Brooklyn accent coming through stronger now, ‘your precious Bucky ain’t just broken, he’s soiled goods. You want sloppy seconds?’

He laughed, with no trace of humor. ‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘it ain’t even sloppy seconds. There were nine of them. And some of them went twice. More like sloppy twelfths.’

Steve felt an overwhelming surge of… something… partly despair, but mostly anger. At the men – the rapists – who were still doing their disgusting business behind him. At Bucky, for not resisting them, even though Steve knew he was right, that there would have been no point to that resistance. Most of all, at himself. For not protecting Bucky like he should have done, for sleeping all that time, oblivious beneath the ice, when things like this were happening. He wanted to hurt something, and he knew he couldn’t hurt those men.

He settled for punching the wall. It hurt, but not as much as it should have. The walls in Bucky’s dreamscape weren’t as hard as walls in real life. Still, the jolt of pain helped to ground him, and release some of his pent-up steam.  It would have to do. He turned back to Bucky, keeping his breath steady, arms crossed across his chest.

‘Bullshit,’ he said again, even more slowly than before. ‘You’re not used. You’re not soiled. What happened ain’t your fault, it leaves no stain on you. And I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll never stop wanting you, either, no matter what they did to you. You understand me, or do I gotta punch the wall again?’

Bucky made a strange huffing sound behind his muzzle, and it took Steve a few seconds to realise he was laughing. Actually laughing, this time.

‘You stupid punk,’ he said, affectionately, ‘you never learn, do you?’

‘Never,’ said Steve.

A moment, where the two men just looked at each other, and the classical music playing in the background rose to a slow crescendo, drowing out any less pleasant sounds. Then Bucky reached up his one hand, and pulled the mask away from his face. He stood there with his chin raised high, as if daring Steve to punch him on it. Steve looked at that cute little dimple, and remembered all the times he’d thought about putting his tongue in it. A lot of times. And that mouth…

‘Buck,’ he said, ‘is it all right if I… would you mind… can I kiss you?’

Bucky’s eyes widened in surprise. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he dropped the mask, grabbed Steve by the neck, and pressed their mouths together.

Steve didn’t have a whole lot of experience with kissing. A couple of broads back in the forties, soft skin and the taste of lipstick – sensations that were totally unlike this scratch of stubble. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but he liked it. He liked it a lot.

The music faded away, and they were back in the corridor again. Bucky pulled his lips away, and let go of his neck, far too soon for Steve’s liking.

‘Can’t we… do that again?’ he asked. Right now, he felt like he’d be perfectly happy just to stand in this corridor, kissing Bucky forever, and real life could just go to hell.

‘We’ve still got four doors left,’ said Bucky.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Steve, and tried to brace himself for the fresh horrors to come.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard female voices. They were talking not in English, but in their own language, with its distinctive clicking sounds. To Steve’s ears, it sounded pleasantly musical, and in the dream state, connected to the oneirobasis, he could understand the meaning.

‘Don’t you think you should take a break, Buyiswa?’ said an unfamiliar voice. ‘You’ve been here hours.’

‘Nobomi, I’m fine,’ said Dr MaBhele, sounding both irritated, and affectionate. ‘This is my job, I’m used to it.’

‘You work yourself too hard,’ said the other voice - Nobomi. ‘You should let somebody else take the heat, sometimes.’

‘Nobody else knows the oneirobasis device like I do.’

‘All right. But I’m going to bring you a coffee and something to eat.’

‘Thank you.’

Despite everything, the little exchange made Steve smile to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for sticking with this story, I know it's tough going (it was tough to write too!) but Steve and Bucky are now more than half way to their happy ending.  
> As ever, comments are very welcome.


	8. Benign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve sees Bucky in an unfamiliar setting, but with someone who looks oddly familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is less-triggery than most - there's no torture, violence, or rape. However, it does feature elements which may be triggering to those who've lived in abusive relationships, ie controlling behavior, veiled threats, and gaslighting.

**Chapter 8 - "Benign"**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/benign_2.jpg.html)

The next chamber came as a shock.

There was no torture, no rape, no dentist’s chair, no hot metal or tormenting voices. The room itself was furnished luxuriously – a thick carpet on the floor, a big boxy television, shelves full of leather-bound books, big comfy armchairs. Steve didn’t know a huge amount about the history of interior design in the decades he’d missed, but something in the pattern of the curtains – a bold design of interlocking circles in orange, brown, and white – made him think this was a room from the 1970s.

He looked around, and saw Bucky. For once, the sight didn’t make him shudder. He was asleep, sprawled on a large bed, wearing some ugly but soft-looking paisley pajamas. His breathing was steady, and he seemed peaceful. Steve turned round, to look at the other Bucky. He stood, gazing at his past self, an expression on his face somewhere between tenderness and deep pain. Steve wanted to ask him why they were here, but he thought he’d find out soon enough.

Somebody else came in, through a side door, and Steve almost did a double take, the man looked so much like the reflection he saw every day in his mirror. He was dressed in high-waisted pants and a white T-shirt – 40s-style clothes, Steve realized. He carried a tray, a dishcloth over it, but the smell of freshly-brewed coffee and freshly-baked bagels escaped.

The man walked over to the bed, laid the tray on the nightstand, and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the still-sleeping Bucky. Steve expected him to shake Bucky awake, but he didn’t: he simply let him sleep, until the smell of coffee drew him out of his dreams.

He stirred, looked up at the man sitting over him in confusion, then rubbed his eyes.

The man whipped the dishcloth off the tray, and smiled at him.

‘I brought you breakfast. Your favorite.’

Bucky peered at him, then at the breakfast.

‘Lox on poppy-seed,’ he muttered.

‘Your favorite,’ repeated the other man, and Steve felt something cold touch his spine.

‘That was _my_ favorite,’ he said. ‘You always had salt beef. And I never brought you breakfast.’

‘Don’t I know it, you lazy little punk,’ said the Bucky next to him.

Steve’s look-a-like stayed on the bed, and started stroking the pajama-clad Bucky on the arm. The metal arm.

‘Eat up, my dearest,’ he said. ‘You need to stay fit and strong.’

Bucky propped himself up on the pillows, picked up the bagel, and started nibbling at it.

‘That’s right,’ said the other man, coaxingly. ‘Have some coffee too.’

He poured a cup from the coffee jug and added cream.

‘There you go, nice and creamy.’ He handed the cup to Bucky with a smile. Bucky took it, without enthusiasm.

‘You always drank your coffee black as tar,’ said Steve.

Neither Bucky said anything. The one on the bed starting drinking his creamy coffee.

‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ said the man, stroking Bucky’s knee. ‘Finish your bagel.’

As Bucky ate, he carried on stroking him, and talking in a crooning voice, as if he were a sickly child.

‘Good, good… that tastes good, doesn’t it? And it’ll keep you healthy. We all want you be healthy. At your peak performance. You’re an asset to us all. A very useful asset.’

He smiled, and gestured round the room.

‘This is a very nice room, isn’t it?’

Bucky nodded as he chewed.

‘Much nicer than some of the other places you’ve been ke- been staying in. And it’s all yours. Comfortable furniture, books, a television, even your own bathroom with unlimited hot water. You can take as many hot showers as you want. You want to take hot showers, don’t you?’

Bucky nodded again, much more keenly than before, and that sight broke Steve’s heart a little. Hot showers – the ultimate reward.

‘Yes,’ the man continued, ‘you can have all this. It’s been decided to let you have it, because you’ve been so very good. You’re our most valued asset.’

Asset, thought Steve. He keeps using that word. And never his name.

‘And so long as you stay good, as long as you continue to be our most valued asset, you will continue to have all this.’ He smiled, and resumed stroking Bucky’s leg, as if he were a favorite pet. Bucky, having now finished eating the bagel, drained the coffee cup.

‘Have some more!’ said the man, and refilled the cup, adding cream, as before. ‘You can live in this lovely room, have all those hot showers, eat plenty of good food. You see, my pretty asset, we can be benign. If you behave yourself, you get the special treatment.’

Steve’s skin was crawling.

‘This isn’t right!’ he burst out. The two on the bed paid him no attention, the one drinking coffee obediently, the other stroking his leg and smiling. Steve turned to the Bucky by his side.

‘Bagels and hot showers aren’t special treatment!’ he said.

‘They sure feel like it when all you’ve had is kasha and cold hose-downs for just about as long as you can remember. Not to mention – the other things.’

Steve thought back to the last room they’d been in, and the one before.

‘But nobody deserves _that_ ,’ he said.

‘Not even a murderer?’

‘Not even a murderer. And besides, you’re not a murderer.’

‘I know. I’m an asset.’

‘You’re not an asset. You’re James Buchanan Barnes. You’re Bucky. You used to eat salt beef bagels and black coffee for breakfast, in Brooklyn. And you will again.’

‘Will I?’

‘Yes,’ said Steve firmly. ‘I need you to help me find the perfect bagels, remember? And I’ll treat you to as many soft beds and hot showers and cups of coffee as you could possibly want.’

‘You can afford that, can you?’ Bucky raised his eyebrows.

‘Sure. I’ve got seventy years of back pay from the US government that’s been gathering compound interest all this time. I didn’t spend much while I was in the ice. I can afford plenty of bagels. I’ll even take you out for black coffee, cheesecake and blintzes.’

Bucky smiled at that. ‘Blintzes… I haven’t had those since… well, since Brooklyn.’

‘You’ll have them again,’ Steve promised. ‘And you know what you have to do to earn all this?’

‘What?’ A fleck of suspicion in Bucky’s eyes.

‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Steve. ‘I don’t care what you do, I’ll still give you everything you want.’

Bucky smiled. A big, cheeky grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. The sight of that smile felt to Steve like a blow to the solar plexus, knocking all the breath out of him. In a pleasant way. As gradually faded, he knew he’d do anything, anything at all, to put that smile on Bucky’s face again and keep it there.

Then he realized they were back in the corridor, without him even noticing the transition. Steve glanced back into the room, and saw it had been replaced by their old apartment they had shared. He was there himself, the skinny version, sitting alongside Bucky on the couch while they ate breakfast. Black coffee and salt beef bagels. Bucky’s favorite, and the best in Brooklyn.

‘We’ll find them again,’ he said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments very welcome! Next chapter should be up tomorrow.  
> It's only reading this story back to myself that I realize I seem to be completely obsessed with bagels. They are so good though...


	9. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The memory in this chamber takes Steve back to New York City, but not as he remembers it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: violence. Also some racism (from Hydra).

**Chapter 9 - "Homecoming"**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/homecoming_2.jpg.html)

‘Just three doors left,’ said Steve, and for the first time, he allowed himself to feel confident that they would get through this. ‘And then we can go home.’

‘Home?’ Bucky asked him. ‘What is home?’

‘It’s, well, home is…’ Steve started to say, but he didn’t get very far.

Bucky gave him a strange half-smile, kicked the next door down, and went through.

Steve followed close behind, and felt a warm breeze on his face. For a second he had a sense they had somehow looped back to the first chamber, because this was Brooklyn Bridge again, on a sunny, perfect day.

But there were differences from before. The New York he could see beneath the blue sky and fluffy clouds was no longer the city of his memories. Nor was it the city of today; there was no Stark Tower. Instead, a twinned pair of tall blocky skyscrapers dominated the skyline. The World Trade Center, he realized, that famous New York landmark which had been built, stood for decades, and been destroyed in a terror attack, all while he slept beneath the ice.

On the bridge, Steve now saw two men come walking towards them, from the Manhattan side. Another version of Bucky, in a baggy tracksuit and baseball cap. With him, the same man Steve had seen in the previous room, now a decade or so older and wearing a smart blue-gray business suit. Now, Steve recognized him: Alexander Pierce. That debonair diplomat who had turned out to be Hydra’s main agent within SHIELD. And – it seemed – Bucky’s handler.

All the pieces finally fell into place, as Steve realized Hydra had made Pierce Bucky’s handler because he looked like _him_. Because they had used whatever remained of Bucky’s original memories to manipulate him into obedience, into thinking that, on some level, he still fought the good fight by his best friend’s side. With the realization came a hot flash of anger, and Steve leapt forwards to block his path, ready to throw Pierce over the safety rail and into the East River.

‘It’s not the same, is it?’ said Pierce, completely ignoring Steve.

The Bucky next to Pierce glanced back over his shoulder, and shrugged. ‘Liberty’s still there,’ he said.

‘But everything else has changed,’ said Pierce.

The two men walked past Steve without paying him any attention, and he fell into step behind them, his Bucky silent.

‘Why are we here?’ he asked. ‘Why did they take you back?’

‘Coming home,’ said Bucky, with a contemptuous snort. ‘Only it ain’t home any more.’

They followed the two men over the bridge and into Brooklyn.

‘And here we are,’ said Pierce, turning around on the spot, arms spread wide as if to show off their surroundings. ‘Brooklyn. The melting pot of the melting pot. All those immigrants who came here looking for a better life.’  He fixed Bucky with a gimlet stare. ‘The Irish and the Jews.’ Bucky didn’t react. ‘The blacks and the Hispanics and the Asians, and every other ill-bred race. The dregs of all the world, washed up here in this urban cesspit. And you call it home.’

Pierce smiled, and beckoned Bucky on. ‘Here, let me show you the landmarks of your life,’ he said. ‘All those things you claim you remember and keep babbling about.’

Bucky followed him, with neither enthusiasm nor reluctance, but a kind of tired resignation, like a dog which has been kicked too many times to bother trying to resist. Behind that, came the other Bucky, and Steve.

It was a strange sensation, walking through streets both familiar and unfamiliar, the city of neither the 1930s nor the 2010s but somewhere in between, in one of Steve’s lost decades. The urban blight he’d heard about was obvious: abandoned buildings, graffiti on every wall, hollow-eyed addicts hunched on every corner. Pierce strode confidently along, with Bucky walking a few paces behind. He never seemed to bother to check if Bucky was still following him or not, but Bucky still always carefully maintained the same distance between them. Pierce looked very out-of-place in his business suit, like a stockbroker strayed from Manhattan; but he didn’t seem worried about being mugged. Steve figured there must be Hydra operatives hidden all around. That, or Pierce had deadly weapons concealed about his person.

Then someone did try to mug him, and Steve saw the truth.

A man came up to Pierce. A young man, but with the gaunt cheeks and stoop of someone much older. He wore a heavy hooded sweatshirt, despite the warm day. And as he approached, he pulled a knife from his pocket, and held it against Pierce’s neck.

‘Gimme everything you got,’ he said, with a snarl.

Pierce didn’t say anything - he just made a slight move of his head. And Bucky sprang into action, without hesitation. He grabbed hold of the wannabe mugger’s wrist, pulling it away from Pierce, and twisted it viciously. Steve heard a sickening crunching sound. The knife clattered to the sidewalk, and the mugger howled in pain.

Bucky didn’t stop there. Without letting go of his wrist, he kicked the man in the small of his back, sending him sprawling to the ground with Bucky still on top of him. Then he grabbed hold of his head, and smashed his face into the concrete sidewalk.

‘Enough,’ said Pierce, and Bucky let go and stood up immediately. Pierce started walking again, Bucky following as before. They left the man just lying there, bleeding into the gutter. None of the passers-by stopped to help him.

‘Shouldn’t we call the cops and the ambulance?’ asked Steve.

‘It already happened, decades ago.’ Bucky pointed out.

‘Was he all right?’

‘I have no idea.’

Steve reluctantly turned his back on the man, and went after Pierce again. Now he knew – Bucky had been Pierce’s deadly weapon, his instant obedience unquestioned. Like a well-trained guard dog. The thought made his stomach churn.

Pierce led his little entourage through their old neighborhood. He seemed to know where everything was, every scrap of Bucky’s childhood. How he had acquired that knowledge – Steve didn’t want to think. He took them round just about every location Steve could remember.

And they were all gone. Demolished or decayed, nothing was as it had been. The alleys where they used to play ball as children were now piled high with garbage, a few desperate junkies making a pitiful home beneath scavenged bits of wood and rusted metal roofing. Their elementary school was an empty shell. The bakery which made the best bagels in Brooklyn had become a run-down bodega. Their childhood homes had been cleared away for a new faceless warehouse. The apartment block where they had lived together, where most of Steve’s happiest memories had been made, was still standing: but it was covered in graffiti, with bars on the windows, and weeds sprouting from the gutters. A woman with hollow eyes and hollow cheeks sat on the steps. She glanced up as Pierce approached, and gave him a horrible approximation of a come-hither smile.

‘You want a good time, honey?’ she asked, in a cracked voice. Pierce ignored her.

‘You see?’ he asked Bucky. ‘You see what this place has become?’

Bucky didn’t say anything, but his stance sagged a little, as if he’d been deflated. As if his last shred of hope had left him.

‘You can’t ever go home,’ Pierce told him. ‘You’re better off with me. I always take care of my most valuable asset. Now, let’s get out of this place.’

He started walking away, and Bucky trailed after him, with a single glance back at the bodega which used to be his favorite bakery.

‘Home doesn’t exist any more,’ said the other Bucky, to Steve, as they followed behind. ‘You can buy me any number of bagels, won’t change that.’

‘I know,’ said Steve. ‘You think I don’t know what that’s like? I woke up after seventy years and found everyone in my barbershop quartet was dead.’

Bucky gave a tiny huff of laughter. ‘So we’re both men out of time. Can’t seem to die.’

‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll die sooner or later. But I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about living. And so should you.’

‘Living? Living ain’t never done me no good.’ Bucky’s Brooklyn accent was now as strong as it had ever been, and despite everything, Steve smiled.

‘Well, we can work on that,’ he said. ‘Together. We can find a new way of living. Make some new memories. Home doesn’t have to be a place, you know. It can be a person. And Bucky – in all my memories, you’re the one by my side. You’re my home. And maybe – if you’ll let me – I can be yours.’

Bucky didn’t make a response.

‘Besides,’ said Steve, ‘not everything has changed. Race you to the bridge.’

And he took off, pounding down the familiar-yet-unfamiliar streets.

‘Hey, wait up!’ Bucky called. A glance over his shoulder and the sound of feet told Steve that Bucky was running after him, but he didn’t slow down. He couldn’t deny, it felt good to be the faster one at last.

Speed and distance seemed to work differently in this dreamscape, as they were back at the bridge in next to no time. Steve ran to the middle, then stopped. Bucky caught him up a moment later. They both grabbed hold of the safety rail and leaned over, catching their breath.

‘See?’ Steve said, gesturing at the harbor. ‘Liberty’s still there. You said so yourself. And the bridge too. Still here.’

He squinted at Manhattan, trying to overlay his memories of both the old city and the new on this view.  ‘And look, the Empire State and the Chrysler Building. Both still there. You remember those being built?’

‘Sure do,’ said Bucky. ‘They’re nearly as old as us.’

Steve turned back towards Brooklyn. ‘The old Williamsburgh Bank Tower. Remember that one?’

‘Yeah. We always thought it looked like a great big dick.’

‘Still does.’

They shared a smile. Steve edged his hand along the rail, towards Bucky’s. ‘I’ll take you back to New York City,’ he said. ‘We can see everything for real. If you want. Or if you want to go someplace else – we’ll go there.’

Bucky shuffled up until they were almost touching. Steve was on the side where he had no arm; that absence felt strange at first, but then he realized it let them get closer together, and he thought he could get used to it. He wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling their bodies together, and took hold of Bucky’s one hand, their fingers intertwined.

He closed his eyes, feeling the warm breeze off the harbour in his face, the warm press of Bucky’s body all down his side, and wished this was real.

The cold air of the icy corridor brought him back to the next layer of reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments very welcome, as ever!  
> There probably won't be an update tomorrow but I'll try to give you a double update on Sunday to make up for it.


	10. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chamber, Steve learns the worst type of torture Hydra can inflict: nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: imprisonment, psychological torture

**Chapter 10 - "One"**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/one_2.jpg.html)

[Art by Lorien](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7695745/chapters/17534107) - two awesome pictures

 

Steve opened his eyes, and looked down the corridor. ‘Only two rooms left,’ he said, more tired than proud, and tried to ignore the fact that the two remaining doors were the ones most heavily encrusted with ice, the writing above them barely legible even if it had been in English. Still holding Bucky to him, he took a few steps to the next door. He peered up at the word above it; it seemed to have only four letters, the first of them an ‘O’.

He felt Bucky shudder next to him, and shrink back. ‘They did this on purpose,’ he said, in a whisper.

‘Did what?’

Bucky gestured at the door, his hand still in Steve’s. ‘What’s behind here. The other stuff… the things we’ve seen… it all just happened.’ He swallowed. ‘It was all things they did because they wanted me to be… their asset. Or… just because they could. But this – this they did to break me and then make me. To implant the memory so I’d never forget. This they did to put the finger on the trigger.’

‘What is it?’ asked Steve.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? I don’t understand.’

‘You will.’

Bucky pulled away from Steve, and moved to stand behind him, holding on to his shoulder as if for reassurance. Steve gently removed his hand, then charged into the door as hard as he could. It juddered, spraying tiny pieces of ice, but didn’t open. He tried again. And again.

‘You don’t have a blowtorch, do you?’ he asked Bucky with an attempt at a smile. ‘Or a battering ram?’

‘No,’ said Bucky. ‘I think I need to open this one by myself.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘I’m gonna have to, aren’t I?’

Bucky stepped back, and for a second Steve thought he was quitting, before realizing he was just giving himself a run-up. He threw himself at the door, not in a shoulder charge like Steve had done but in a full-body jump, feet first and fully committed.

The door burst open, Bucky landed on his feet like a cat, and Steve saw… nothing.

The room had nothing in it, not even light. A strip of cold light from the corridor fell across the floor, and showed bared concrete. The rest was utter darkness.

Bucky stood frozen in the opening, his black clothes barely visible against the deeper blackness. Steve came up and looked over his shoulder, and saw the one thing the room contained.

Another Bucky, of course, but this one had nothing. No clothes, no dignity, and no hope. He sat hunched in the corner of the room, his face buried in his knees, metal fingers wrapped around his leg, as if trying to make himself as small as he could, as if trying to disappear. If it hadn’t been for the slight movement of his breathing, Steve might have thought he’d died here and been left to rot. But no – that wasn’t what Hydra did. Why let someone die when you could make them live?

Steve felt a powerful wave of pity and disgust as he saw what Bucky had become, huddled in this cell. He had undergone so many torments, of every kind that the twisted minds of Hydra could devise. Yet the brutal simplicity of this one, of leaving him alone with no company but his demons…  

And the worst of it was –

‘It could have been me,’ he said. ‘It should have been me. I should have been the one who fell from that train-’

‘You weren’t,’ said Bucky, his voice flat.

‘I should have found you,’ said Steve. ‘All those years – I thought you were dead, when really…’

He felt a sob rising, and swallowed it back down. ‘I’m so sorry, Buck,’ he said. ‘I should have saved you.’

‘What do you think you’re doing now?’ Bucky glanced at him, eyebrows raised. Steve didn’t reply - he had a lump in his throat.

‘I don’t know how long they kept me like this,’ said Bucky, turning back to look at his alter ego. ‘In the dark, you lose track of time. And yourself. They knew that. They knew they’d made a dungeon in my mind I could never escape. ’

‘Bucky-’

‘You were asleep,’ Bucky continued, relentless. ‘All that time, you were alone under the ice, but you were sleeping. You didn’t have to live through it. Not like I did. Not like this.’

Steve didn’t think there was anything he could say. They stood together, as still and as silent as statues, watching the prisoner in his cell, the dungeon he would never truly escape. Eventually, a crazy thought came into Steve’s mind. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could say. But maybe there was something he could do. He reached out, and took Bucky’s hand.

‘I know I can’t change what they did to you,’ he said. ‘But you don’t have to be alone any more. If I can’t help you escape the dungeon, I can be in it with you.’

‘Can you? You think you can bear this?’

‘For you, I’ll bear anything.’

Steve turned around, and slammed the door shut with his other hand, trapping them both in the darkness together. Before the primal terror of the dark could engulf him, he pulled Bucky to him, and held him as close as he possibly could. They clung to each other, hearts beating hard, their breathing gradually settling down from panicked gasps into steady, synchronized breaths.

‘So,’ said Bucky, ‘how about a game of I Spy?’

Steve laughed, and the lights came on.

 

***

 

‘One door left,’ said Bucky. ‘Can you do it?’

Steve finally felt the tension start to drain away. Nine doors down. All those trigger words neutralized thanks to his and Bucky’s efforts. From the plush cinema at the far end of the corridor to the cell now illuminated and containing versions of both Bucky and Steve, he’d entered each chamber and dealt with whatever Hydra had thrown at him.

‘I could do this all day,’ he said.

‘That serum made everything bigger but your brain, didn’t it?’

‘My brain was plenty big to start with so the serum couldn’t do nuthin’ with it. My brain - and one other thing.’

Bucky grinned, shaking his head. ‘Stupid punk,’ he said.

Steve looked up at the writing over the final door. There were two words this time, a string of unintelligible Russian letters. ‘What does it say?’ he asked.

‘Gruzovoy vagon,’ said Bucky, although his Russian now sounded more Brooklyn than Volgograd. ‘It means freight car.’

‘Freight car?’ Steve felt a faint stirring of doubt.

‘Yeah.’ Bucky gave him a sidelong glance. ‘You’re not wimping out on me now, are you Rogers?’

‘No, never,’ said Steve.

‘Good.’

‘All right,’ Bucky positioned himself, ready to kick. ‘Let’s do this together. On three. One, two, three!’

They both kicked the door, and it opened onto Steve’s nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, comments very welcome! The next chapter - with the final chamber - should be up soon.


	11. Freight Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the final chamber, Steve must face the worst memory of them all, and come to terms with his own failures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts

**Chapter 10 - "Freight Car"**

[Header art by Lorien](http://s795.photobucket.com/user/lorien_icons/media/non%20icons/sbb2016/freightcar_2.jpg.html)

Freight car. Of course – he should have known. What else could it be, behind the final door?

The side of the car, hanging open, Bucky clinging to the flimsy metal rail. Beyond – nothing but mountains, snow, and empty air.

Steve watched as it happened, helpless to stop it. His former self, reaching out to Bucky – but not in time. Bucky falling away from him with a horrible scream, his face full of terror. Falling, falling… it seemed like he’d be falling for ever. Steve had thought him dead – and now he knew the truth had been far worse.

He watched his own silent despair, and the gut-wrenching pain of it was just as raw as it had ever been.

Then the scene re-set itself, and he had to watch it again, every agonizing moment, wondering all the time, what could he have done differently? Gone straight to save Bucky rather than dealing with Zola’s metal soldier first? Would that have just gotten them both killed? But – that would have been better, wouldn’t it, if they’d both died here. Death was better, far better, than what had happened to Bucky.

Or – as Steve watched himself hanging on, he had a different thought. Why hadn’t he just flung himself after Bucky? What had he been living for?

He knew why, of course, somewhere in the back of his mind. He knew what he’d been living for. He’d had a war to fight. He’d had Hydra to defeat. He’d had a date with Peggy. But now… it all seemed so pointless. The war was long over, Hydra had grown more heads, Peggy had lived a full life without him and now lay dead, as he should be. Bucky was the only thing he had left – and he hadn’t saved him.

The scene re-set again, and he had to watch it all again.

By his side, the other Bucky stood watching himself fall, his face unreadable.

‘How can you bear it?’ Steve asked him.

‘At the time, I thought it was the end. Turns out, it was only the beginning.’

Only the beginning…

All those other rooms… the hot metal and the cold concrete, the tormenting voices and the tormenting silence. The teeth pulled out and the arm put in, the nine men who’d used him and the one man who’d manipulated him. The false dawns, and the false homecoming. So many years, under Hydra’s control, one torture chamber after another.

_‘All that time, you were alone under the ice, but you were sleeping. You didn’t have to live through it. Not like I did.’_

Those words echoed through Steve’s skull. He’d tried so hard, offering Bucky everything he could. Comfort and promises. All just words. He’d locked them in the dark together, here in the dreamscape, but he hadn’t actually been there, when Bucky had needed him the most.

And now… all he could do was watch his greatest failure, play out over and over again. Just like in his dreams, it was always the same. Bucky falling away, and he couldn’t do anything to save him.

Steve’s legs gave out beneath him and he sank to his knees, on the cold hard floor of the freight car.

‘Steve?’ Bucky’s hand was on his shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Steve, but the words felt totally inadequate. He reached up, grabbed Bucky’s arm, holding on as if his life depended on it, as if by holding on now he could at last stop Bucky falling, seventy years ago.  ‘I should have saved you. I should have fallen with you. I should have been the one this happened to. You didn’t deserve it. Nobody does. Any of it.’

Bucky bent down a little, and Steve buried his face in the crook of the other man’s arm. The sob he’d suppressed before came back again, and this time, he couldn’t stop it. He heard the other Bucky’s scream as he fell from the freight car once more, and knew he could never do anything to protect him. Another sob came, and another.

‘Steve, Steve…’

‘I knew you’d follow me into the jaws of death,’ Steve said, his voice shaky and muffled by the thick black fabric of Bucky’s sleeve. ‘But I never dreamt you’d fall into the jaws of Hydra. You gotta believe me, if I’d known what would happen to you, I’d have done anything to stop it, anything…’ He looked up, his face streaked with tears. Bucky looked back at him, dry-eyed, and the awful truth came down, crushing the breath out of him. ‘But I didn’t do anything,’ he whispered, brokenly, and buried his face his Bucky’s arm again. ‘Every night I dream of falling. I’m trying to save you, but I never do. I never can. When I fell from that helicarrier, you fell with me, and fished me out of the Potomac. But when you fell…’

That scream, as the old Bucky fell from the freight car, not six yards away. Steve felt like it pierced not only his ears, but his whole body, right down to the bone. He took a deep, painful breath.

‘I thought you were dead, Buck. And then, in the Valkyrie, when I brought her down – I thought I’d be dead as well. And that – that seemed easier. Not having to go on living without you, having to figure everything out on my own.’

He remembered those last few minutes in the Valkyrie, talking to Peggy on the radio. It had been – terrifying, yes, but also somehow pure. He had been brave, hadn’t he? Brave and self-sacrificing. Heroic, not suicidal. Everything suddenly clear and simple, his path illuminated as if by lightning. He had been so sure, so absolutely certain, that he’d done the right thing, saving thousands upon thousands of people for the sacrifice of his own life. And if plunging himself into the icy water had felt a little bit like redemption for his failure to save Bucky from that fall… well so much the better. But if he’d known…

‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘I never guessed you were still alive.’

He risked another glance up at Bucky, whose face was still impassive. Steve felt more sobs rack his body, but this time he didn’t hide his face. He kept his head up, let Bucky see the tears fall. ‘I should never have given up hope. I should have searched the whole of Europe for you. I should have searched the whole goddamn world. Kicked down every door. Killed anyone who got in my way. Burned Hydra to the ground. So many years – so many chances I could have taken. But I was asleep.’

Another painful, shuddering breath.

‘Can you ever forgive me? I know I don’t deserve it, but please, Bucky, if you can find it in you to forgive me… please. I’ll do anything.’

He clutched at Bucky’s arm, and finally, he’d run out of words.

A beat of silence, and then another. Then that scream again, as the scene continued on its endless loop. And then Bucky grinned at him.

‘You always were a dumb little punk,’ he said. ‘Your mouth writing checks your scrawny ass couldn’t cash. You say you’ll do anything if I forgive you-’

‘And I mean it.’

‘I know you do.’

Bucky tipped his head on one side a little to examine Steve, and as he did so, Steve noticed something about him. He wasn’t wearing the Winter Soldier’s black heavy-duty combat gear any more. He had on instead the simple white cotton singlet and pants he’d been wearing in Wakanda. And Steve’s hands weren’t touching the fabric of his sleeve, but the skin of his arm, warm and soft. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a female voice say ‘I think the treatment has worked. Steve, if you can hear me, you’re nearly there. Just be careful now.’

‘You still remember the Cyclone at Coney Island?’ Bucky asked him.

‘How could I forget? I think I threw up all my guts that day.’

‘Well, this is gonna be worse.’ Bucky jerked his arm, and Steve stood up shakily. Bucky nodded towards the gash in the side of the car, where his other self had been clinging moments before. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

Steve put a hand on the small of his back and looked him in the eye. ‘Ready.’

Bucky put his one arm around Steve, and rocked back on his heels. Together, they ran the few steps between them and the gaping hole, and flung themselves into the void.

 

***

 

Steve’s stomach stayed behind in the freight car, together with his old self. But he didn’t care any more; he had everything he needed right here in his arms, falling through the air with him.

‘Just so you know,’ Bucky whispered into his ear as they fell, his voice somehow clear despite the rush of air past them, ‘I already forgave you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, really. I already forgave you for thinking I was dead after I fell thousands of feet from a moving train, and for sacrificing yourself to save the Eastern seaboard instead of wasting your life searching for a dead man. But I made you jump with me anyway. Cuz I just wanted to see if you’d actually do it. Wasn’t sure if you were that stupid.’

Steve laughed. ‘You know I’m that stupid.’

Bucky smiled. ‘I sure do.’

And as they tumbled through space, Steve’s two arms and Bucky’s one wrapped tightly round each other, Bucky closed the inch of space between their lips and kissed him. Steve closed his eyes and thought that this time, he would finally die happy.

***

 

When you dream of falling, you never hit the ground. But Steve had forgotten he was in a dream. His eyes were closed, he had Bucky, and it seemed the fall would last forever. He didn’t see the ground approaching, didn’t feel the change in atmospheric pressure. He did hear Dr MaBhele, yelling in his ear: ‘Mr Rogers! I told you to be careful! Your vital signs are all over the place, and so are Mr Barnes’! If you can hear me, please try to wake up before you both go into cardiac arrest.’

Steve opened his eyes, and saw the ground, hard and rocky and coming up sickeningly fast. Then he and Bucky flipped over, out of control, so he could see nothing but empty sky.

‘It ain’t the fall that kills you…’ Bucky said in his ear, and laughed. They flipped again. And now Steve saw something on the ground: a square of white, too regularly-shaped to be a patch of snow.

Before he could figure out what it was, they did another flip. And then they hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading - and please don't panic, the final chapter will be posted tomorrow and it will have a happy ending! Comments always very welcome.


	12. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky wake up back in Wakanda, find out how the treatment has gone, and get to spend a little quality time together at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the happy ending at last, so no trigger warnings! There is a little bit of smut though, I hope that's all right ;)

**Chapter 12: Awakening**

[Art by Gassada](http://gassadaarts.tumblr.com/post/148942217457/longing-and-waking-up-painted-for-the-finger) (two gorgeous pictures, one for this chapter and one for the earlier 'Longing' chapter)

The impact knocked all the breath out of Steve’s body, but it didn’t crush him into pulp. He lay on his back, flopping and gasping like a landed fish. What he saw and heard made no sense: instead of the sky overhead, a plain white ceiling: and instead of the roar of air past his ears, a pandemonium of urgent beeps and clicks.

After a few seconds of utter confusion, he realized that the beeps were made by medical equipment, settling down as his heart went from hammering fit to burst to a steadier pace, and the clicks were actually Dr MaBhele and her assistants, talking rapidly in their own language.

‘Mr Rogers,’ she said, leaning over him, ‘are you all right?’

‘Where’s Bucky?’

She smiled, and moved her eyes. He turned his head in the direction she’d indicated, and saw Bucky lying beside him, on his back, his eyes half-open and unfocused. There were plastic tubes in his arm and nose. A strange metallic tube with glowing pulses of energy moving along it emerged from his ear, and led into a thing like a big ball of golden light. It looked as if it were feeding off Bucky’s mind.

Steve had seen him being tortured on an operating table too many times.

‘What are you doing to him?’ he yelled, and reached over to rip the tubes away.

‘Stop, stop!’ cried Dr MaBhele, and immediately bodyguards from the Dora Milaje crowded round, holding Steve back.

‘We’re not hurting him, please be calm,’ she said. ‘The device must be disconnected gently.’

‘What is that thing?’

‘That’s the oneirobasis device,’ she explained. And, as Steve studied it more closely, he realized two things. The first thing he realized was that he had a similar tube in his own ear, so he was connected to it too, the same as Bucky. The second thing he realized was that, if he looked carefully into the center of the ball of light, he could make out a image. A snowy hillside, and a fortress made of ice, melting away.

‘Well, Mr Rogers, you had us worried a few times, but I believe the treatment has been successful,’ said Dr MaBhele, smiling at him. And Steve saw that she had a glow about her as well. She had tiny threads of golden light wound around her fingers. ‘As Mr Barnes has been in cryo, he will take a bit longer to regain full consciousness. We will monitor and care for him. You can leave now, if you wish.’

‘No. I’ll stay here until he wakes up.’

‘I thought you would.’

Steve rolled onto his side, facing Bucky. They were lying together on a big square surface, somewhere between an operating table and a bed. It seemed oddly familiar, and then he remembered: the white square he’d seen as they fell from the train. The medical staff fussed around them, carefully disconnecting all the equipment. Steve ignored them. He took hold of Bucky’s hand, twining their fingers together, and watched his face as he slowly resurfaced from his dreamscape, recognized Steve lying next to him, and smiled.

 

***

 

‘How are they doing?’ T’Challa’s voice, from the corner of the room. Steve hadn’t noticed him come in – or perhaps he’d been there the whole time.

‘Very well,’ said Dr MaBhele. ‘The healing process has begun. We will need to do a controlled test to be absolutely certain, but I believe Mr Rogers’ journey through Mr Barnes’ dreamscape has neutralized the embedded trigger words. Despite his reckless behavior at times.’

T’Challa gave a deep sigh of relief, and muttered something Steve didn't catch.

‘Stevie Rogers, behave recklessly? I don’t believe it,’ said Bucky, in a whisper only Steve could hear. He moved his hand to stroke Steve’s face.

‘How do you feel, Mr Barnes?’ Dr MaBhele asked.

‘Hungry.’

‘Me too,’ said Steve. ‘How long were we in there for?’ He genuinely had no idea.

‘Almost twenty-seven hours.’

‘Wow. That’s a – long time.’

‘It’s a very long time,’ came a different voice, female, heavily accented, and oddly familiar. ‘And Buyiswa was by your side all that time.’

Steve raised his head, and saw a tall, elegant woman, wearing a brightly-patterned head wrap. She came and stood by Dr MaBhele, and they exchanged a few words in their language. He caught the name ‘Nobomi’, and thought he’d heard it before.

                ‘She took care of you, now I take care of her,’ said the woman, and took the doctor's hand, gently tugging her away. Dr MaBhele gave Steve an apologetic smile, and a shrug, and let herself be tugged. He noticed for the first time how tired she looked.

                ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ he said, though the words seemed inadequate.

                The King spoke. ‘Excellent work, Dr MaBhele. As for recovery - you two are welcome to stay here as long as you like. I will order a guest room made up for Mr Barnes,’ he said.

                ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said the doctor, as Nobomi led her out of the room.

                T’Challa came and stood at the foot of the bed, hands folded behind his back, and surveyed the two men lying there. Bucky’s fingers still stroked along Steve’s jaw, and Steve’s hand rested on Bucky’s hip. T’Challa smiled at them, like a proud father at his children. Despite the fact that they were both at least sixty years older than him.

                ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose that will be necessary. But I will order you up some food. What would you like?’

                ‘How about some bagels and black coffee?’ said Steve. Bucky started a little in surprise, then grinned.

                ‘Are Wakandan bagels any good?’ he asked.

                ‘They’re not a patch on New York City, but they’re not bad. And we gotta start somewhere, right?’

                ‘Right.’

 

 

***

 

After eating five bagels each, and drinking about a gallon of coffee, Steve helped the still-unsteady Bucky back to his room, with one arm round his waist. As the door closed behind them, Steve put both arms around him, and leaned his forehead against Bucky’s.

‘Do you remember everything I said, inside the dreamscape?’ he asked.

‘Every word.’

‘I meant all of it, you know. Still do.’

‘I know.’

They stood like that for a few quiet moments, just breathing each other in. Then Steve couldn’t help laughing.

‘What’s funny?’

‘Oh nothing – it’s just I’ve waited so long for this, and now I don’t know what to do.’

‘You could start by kissing me.’

So Steve did. Bucky’s face – like his own – was scratchy with stubble, but his lips were soft. He tasted like coffee and sour morning breath, but Steve didn’t care. As they pulled apart, he smiled, as happy as a kid with a brand-new baseball bat. Bucky smiled back, but his eyes seemed a little troubled.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah…’ Bucky looked down, unable to meet his eye. ‘It’s just… after everything they did to me, I’m not sure I’m ready… I want to take it one step at a time.’ He looked up again, pleading. ‘I hope that’s – not a problem.’

Steve laughed again. ‘A problem? For you, Buck, nothing’s a problem. Besides, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’d really like to take things slowly for myself. I’m kinda nervous.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, y’know, I never did get the chance to dance with Peggy. Then I was asleep all that time. And then it’s been real difficult adjusting…’

‘Steve,’ said Bucky, ‘are you trying to tell me you’re a ninety-nine year old virgin?’

‘I’m ninety-eight, thank you very much.’

They both laughed, and then breathed in together.

‘You know what I really want now?’ said Bucky. ‘A nice hot shower.’

‘I think we can get you one of those,’ said Steve. ‘You’re not gonna believe the bathroom.’ He took Bucky’s hand, and led him through the bedroom into the palatial marble-lined room that adjoined it.

‘Whoa,’ said Bucky, ‘this place is bigger than our whole apartment in Brooklyn!’

‘I know right? Check out that walk-in shower. It’s bigger than my old bedroom.’

‘Plenty of room for us both,’ said Bucky, with a cheeky grin.

'Are you sure?' asked Steve. 'You said you want to go one step at a time...'

'Yeah, I'm sure. This is the next step.'

‘All right,’ said Steve, his heart pounding painfully but pleasurably in his chest.

They stripped off their clothes, and Bucky stepped in as Steve set the shower going. It had taken him long enough to figure out the controls the first time, but he had it all worked out now, and felt a little bit proud of himself. He kept tweaking the temperature and flow rate until Bucky grabbed his arm and pulled him over.

‘It’s great,’ he said. He placed his fingers on the back of Steve’s neck, and kissed him.

The kiss lasted for a long, long time. They stood under the shower together, naked skin pressed against naked skin down the full length of their bodies. Steve rapidly became light-headed as his oxygen ran out and all the blood drained away from his head to somewhere else, but he didn’t want to break it off. He could feel Bucky getting aroused too, his dick slotted against Steve’s hip and hardening with impressive speed.

Eventually Bucky pulled his mouth from Steve’s and they both gasped for air. Bucky re-positioned fractionally, so their dicks were now in direct contact, and Steve gasped some more, sparks of pleasure crackling through his body.

‘That’s not too much, is it?’ Bucky asked him.

‘No, no.’

‘Good. Now, you’re the one with two hands, so I need you to do the next bit.’

‘What next bit?’

‘Put your hand down between us… further down… now you’re getting it.’

It took Steve a second, but he got the idea. He wrapped one hand around both cocks, using the other hand to hold Bucky close and them both steady. God, but it felt so good to have Bucky here with him at last, after so many years of  lost hopes and broken dreams. Meanwhile, Bucky kept his own hand on Steve’s neck, and kissed him again. Then he broke off, and whispered in Steve’s ear, his voice barely audible over the sound of running water.

‘Come on Steve, you might not have much experience, but you must know what to do with your own right hand.’

‘Oh, yeah, sure,’ said Steve, flushing a little, and started moving his hand up and down the two shafts. The sensation was almost too much for him right away, and he had to bite his own lip, trying to stave off the inevitable.

‘Come for me, Steve.’ The words in his ear tipped him over the edge, and Steve groaned aloud and came so hard he splashed white all over Bucky’s chest. Bucky didn’t seem to mind though; he just thrust into Steve’s hand until he came himself, and then they stood under the shower, letting it wash them clean.

‘I love you, Buck,’ said Steve. And this time, he got the answer he needed:

‘I love you too.’

 

***

 

‘I know this sounds stupid,’ said Bucky, walking back through to the bedroom wearing a towel and nothing else, ‘but I could really use a nap.’ He yawned. ‘All that dream-work has taken it out of me.’

‘Me too,’ said Steve, and caught the yawn. He looked at the bed, easily big enough for both of them. Then he looked at the rug where he’d slept before.

‘I, um, I can’t sleep on the bed,’ he admitted. ‘It’s too soft.’

‘Where do you sleep then?’

Steve pointed at the rug. ‘Er, there.’

Bucky shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep there too.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’ve slept on harder floors. And I wanna be with you.’

Steve couldn’t argue with that.

The two of them lay down naked on the rug, using their towels as pillows. At first, they were facing each other. Then Bucky said: ‘Roll over, Rogers.’

‘Why?’

‘Hey Steve, you might be the super-soldier super-hero now, but you’re still the little spoon.’

Steve laughed, but he did as Bucky had said, and they curled up together and drifted off to sleep. This time, Steve didn’t dream of falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we've got to the happy ending at last - it's been a rough ride but I hope the destination was worth it! Thank you for reading, the comments on this story throughout have made me very happy, so please share your thoughts.  
> if you ever want to come chat about Stucky angst (or anything really) you can find me on tumblr: http://persephone-garnata.tumblr.com/


End file.
